Now that we've all survived the bombastic return of the angry extraterrestrials in Independence Day: Resurgence, new sci-fi drama Arrival promises something a little more subtle and thoughtful, with a prime awards-contending slot in place. Take a look at the first images from the new movie, featuring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.
Arrival has Sicario director Denis Villeneuve swapping gang drug violence for intellectual drama about the arrival of a new species. Lights Out writer Eric Heisserer has adapted Ted Chiang's 1998 novella Story Of Your Life (the film originally used that as its title), which finds a linguist named Louise Banks (Adams) pressed into service to figure out an alien language when a dozen mysterious pods appear in the atmosphere and hover above the ground (you can see one in the image with Adams above).
Looking to capture a tone nearer to that Close Encounters than Roland Emmerich, Adams explains the appeal. “This isn’t a graphic-novel universe or creating a new universe. This happens in our world today, as it exists,” she tells the paper. “Not having to transport myself to a universe where superheroes exist, which is also fun, really helped me ground the character and the experience.”
Also brought in to help is a physicist named Ian Donnelly (Renner), who will prove invaluable. “I haven’t played a smart nerdy guy," he says. "I thought there was a great challenge in that." For more on the film, head to USA Today's site.
Given the appearance of imagery, we suspect a trailer is on the way, so watch this space. Arrival lands in the States (and is reportedly due here, though there's no official word about that) on November 11.